Sobriety Court is available for those who have felonies or convictions of drunk driving offenses to receive a driver 's license with certain restrictions. This is one of the choices a judge in the state of Michigan may sentence someone with a DUI offense. An example of this would be if a mother of two was convicted of drinking and driving, she could either spend five years in jail or take two years of sobriety court, where the mother could live at home with her family, go to work, and drive (with restrictions). Onc can agree that sobriety court is most definitely more appealing than jail. However, only one out of every five people actually completes the program. Sobriety court is an intensive probation program, but is it worth the inconvenience and disturbance to help these alcoholics and multiple DUI offenders? Participants in the program are obligated to pay a program fee which can be anywhere around two thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars. Also, valuable family time is close to nonexistent because of the strict rules that the program has set. Sobriety court in Michigan is unsupportive, expensive, and does little to actually help its participants in the long run. When somebody is sentenced sobriety court, they have the opportunity to gain a restricted license, to work and spend time with their family, all without any jail time. That is, only if the participant does everything correctly without complications. My father was forty-nine when he was arrested and
Imagine the idea of a college student driving back to her dorm from the grocery store. She waits patiently for the light to turn green as she sings to her favorite song on the radio. Finally, its time for her to go and she accelerates through the intersection. Little did she know a man that had too many drinks would come flying through the red light. The last thing she saw was the headlights of his car. Drunk driving is a heartbreaking occurrence. Every day drunk drivers are imprisoned, either for traffic violations, dangerous driving, or accidents. People that make the mistake of drinking and driving not only put themselves in danger; they put all of the other people on the roads in danger. Innocent lives may be lost because of another’s
Driving under the influence has affected many people's lives and families. Today I would like to talk to you about the problems of drinking and driving, and why it is a concern for all of us. Driving under the influence is one of the most common and dangerous situations you can put yourself or someone else in. The fact is that drinking and driving is a huge deal and can leave a long trail of broken dreams and hearts. If you drink and drive, not only are you putting yourself at risk, but your passengers and the pedestrians outside of your vehicle. According to the most recent statistics by the National Commission Against Drunk Driving states that 17,000 Americans die each year in alcohol- related traffic crashes and 600,000 Americans
The sixth key component requires that sanctions and rewards be coordinated into the programs to govern responses to participant’s compliance and non-compliance (NADCP, 1997). Some rewards could be praise from the judge, reduced supervision, reduced fines and etc. while some sanctions could be fines, community service, or even jail confinement. The seventh key component focuses on the importance of judicial interaction throughout the program, which can sometimes occur on a weekly basis. Key component number eight explains how imperative monitoring and evaluation is to measure the achievement of program goals and measure effectiveness. It is imperative for drug courts to display some sort of positive outcome by “gathering and managing information due to them monitoring daily activities, evaluating the quality of services provided, and producing longitudinal evaluations” (Mackin et al., 2012). The ninth and tenth components promote the importance of interdisciplinary education and forging partnerships with other agencies and community-based organizations. Education and training are important to maintain a specific level of professionalism and expanding collaborations would be helpful to provide a continuum of services for drug court participants.
Drunk driving is considered a serious crime in every state. It is wrong, irresponsible and wastes many lives. People who abuse alcohol hurt everyone around them, endanger public safety, and create carnage on the nation's highways. There is nothing positive that can come out of drunk driving, so why do people do it? It is society's job to punish these menaces and try to take control of this out of control issue. America doesn't want to watch idly as hundreds of people are killed each day. We want to take a stand and let the world know that we may be the 'land of the free and the brave' but there is nothing brave or free about driving drunk. What should be done about this problem is debatable and certainly open to discussion, but the first
There are separate drug courts for adults and juveniles. An adult court is designed to reduce recidivism and substance abuse among drug-involved offenders in the community. It also seeks to increase an offender’s success in recovery through continuous treatment, mandatory random drug testing, community supervision and use of other rehabilitation services. In juvenile treatment court, offenders meet frequently (often weekly) to determine how to address the substance abuse and other related problems of the youth and his or her family that brought him or her to the justice system (Treatment Court
Drug Courts came about as a result of a backlogged court system and a steady, rapidly increasing prison population. Drug courts are a form of diversion that helps the offender through rehabilitation and the community through an increased sense of protection, which serves the best interest of everyone. Drug Courts are community based intermediate sanctions that incorporate treatment principles into the Criminal Justice System and divert drug offenders from traditional punishments of probation and prison. The objective of drug courts programs is to treat the underlying problems of addiction among drug offenders and eliminate participants’ future drug use and crime.
Managing A DU When You're The Boss At Work: A Few Helpful Ways To Cope
Parole eligibility is expanded to certain classes of nonviolent offenders. These parole eligibilities are expanded to include nonviolent offenders who were previously ineligible because of sentencing enhancements, such as selling drugs near a school. Allows nonviolent offenders who are otherwise ineligible for parole to petition the sentencing court for eligibility after serving 25 percent of their sentence. Mississippi implements a geriatric parole provision which initiates parole hearings for nonviolent offenders who are 60 years or older and have served at least 10 years in prison. They mandate that the Department of Corrections create case plans for all parole-eligible offenders at admission to ensure needed treatment and services are completed before parole review. Restricts parole hearings to cases in which offenders have failed to comply with their case plans or victims or local law enforcement officials have requested hearings, creating a more predictable rate for paroles granted. Probation is an alternative to incarceration. At the time of a trial, a judge has the sole authority to recommend probation for a defendant. Once someone
You would think that if a person gets pulled over, arrested, gets his/her license suspended and gets court ordered to pay 250+ dollars in fines, that they would never get behind the wheel under the influence again and endanger someone else’s life. Wrong. According to a 2007 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study over half of drivers arrested for drunk driving in the nation are repeat offenders. All states have adopted 21 as the legal drinking age. Two-thirds of the states have now passed Administrative License Revocation (ALR) laws, which allow the arresting officer to take the license of drivers who fail or refuse to take a breath test. All states have now lowered the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit from .10 to .08 percent for adults, and all states have passed Zero Tolerance laws which prohibit drivers under twenty-one from having any amount of alcohol in their blood system. The penalties have increased for drinking and driving, yet the repeated offenders percentages haven’t decreased. Thus proving, what the laws are doing now is not working and they need to be raised. Going back to the purpose of punishment, if people keep doing the same thing, than the consequences before did not faze them and need to be stricter.
Drug courts are specialised programs aimed at criminal offenders who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction (US Department of Justice, 2015, p.1). Drug courts improve offenders’ quality of life by decreasing substance dependency and improve mental wellbeing. Jane Lee, for the Age, explains people facing jail for drug and alcohol charges may be placed on a two-year treatment order, instead of serving jail time. The purpose of a drug court is to secure and maintain drug users in treatment, reduce non-violent incarceration rates and recidivism among prior offenders (Belenko, 1998, p.6).
After experiencing the campus police and the preceding hearing, I have learned that drinking while underage in a dry building is both against the university’s and my own policies. This university takes these matters seriously, which I am grateful for. After this one irresponsible night, I will not be drinking on campus let alone underage. The process that the RAs and campus police took were excellent, for they really frightened me once we were caught. I am aware that this process is in fact a real procedure, not just show. This made me really contemplate what occurred the night the offense was brought to light. I learned, that you will get caught if you drink excessive amount of alcohol in a dry dorm building. The RAs were probably trained to figure out when these situations are occurring, along with the campus police. In addition, I learned that the RAs are just making sure people are being safe (along with teaching them a lesson of not drinking). They are not there to be mean or anything, which one of my peers was convinced was true, but to teach irresponsible students of the results that will inevitably follow after. The fear and
Nevertheless, some situations, such as a participant in the program refuse to continue to participate in the treatment, will result in termination and likely lead to the individual being taken back into custody. But for someone who violates the terms of the drug agreement by relapsing will result in extending time adding to their time. But for someone who violates the curfew or show sign of disrespectful to other people in the program will result to freedom being taken away like he or she cannot use a cellphone for two weeks, wash all the dishes, no tv privileges. Furthermore, when it comes to this drug court being successful in this program require successful completion of all the program is contingent upon remaining drug-free and without arrest for a specific for a specific period of
Some states and counties are taking a different type of approach to the problem, including putting offenders face to face with drunk driver victims and having them listen to their stories of pain and suffering because of a drunk driver. Other times they will have the drunk driver face the remaining family of someone who they killed or injured in a drunk driving accident. Some are even taking it to the street, by having the offender wear or carry a poster that states they are a drunk driver and what their crime was along city streets and highways. Each punishment is meant to personalize the pain that drinking and driving can cause others and their families, in the hopes that it might make the offender stop and think before getting behind the wheel.
One of the most profound problems that plagues our society is drug addiction. With drug addiction comes those who offend and have run-ins with the law. Our country deals with these drug-addicted offenders by placing them in jails for a year or longer, only to have them come back out to society when their sentence is over. They are still drug-addicts and so they return to the street only to commit yet another crime. From here the cycle of crime, arrest, jail, and return to society continues, solving absolutely nothing. Therefore, placing drug-addicted offenders in jails fails to confront the major problem at hand which is that of the drug abuse. If drug-addicted offenders were placed in drug treatment centers instead of being incarcerated,
The more a person drinks, the more their ability to make important decisions erode and becomes impaired. After even just one drink a person can lose the ability to operate a vehicle. At certain parts in the state of intoxication, it becomes illegal to drive a car and if you get caught it can possible lead to fines, or even imprisonment. The legal limit of alcohol you can consume changes from state to state, but the penalty of driving under the influence is always severe. Getting arrested and maybe being forced to sleep in a drunk tank is just some of the problems you also have to carry the humiliation and the shame of being caught and that person might just end up with their name written up in the local news paper. Alcoholism is a disease and it can make you do some things you would not want to and to repeat your past mistakes. More than one-third of drives arrested for intoxication are repeat offenders. Drivers with a prior DUI offense have a much higher likelihood to be in a fatal crash. (National Commission Against Drunk Driving, 2003). Repeat offenders also face the risk of ruining their own lives. They have the risk of possibility losing their license and that could also result in the losing of their jobs if their employer finds out about the conviction.